Frayed
by Erinya
Summary: They are fraying, she thinks, unraveling like rope worn brittle and strained by sun and salt and wind tension. WE, implied JE. DMC spoilers.


**Disclaimer:** They do not belong to me. I only torture them for fun. Ted and Terry get all the profit and the credit as well.  
**Warning:** Angst all around.  
**Summary:** "They are fraying, she thinks, unraveling like rope brittle-worn and strained by sun and salt and wind-tension." Post-DMC (major spoilers), sort-of-spoilery for AWE since one detail was inspired by accounts of the teaser trailer, but nothing earth-shaking. W/E with J/E implied.

* * *

**Frayed**

"It won't be long now," Will says. "He--Barbossa--" he spits their Captain's name like a curse-- "he says we're nearly there. Nearly to World's End."

"That's good," she says mechanically.

His face, once so open and plain-written, is a cipher to her now in the gloom of the gun-deck. "Yes," he says, and she hears the weight of words unspoken in that single curt syllable; but he says nothing more, and moves to turn away.

"Will," she says, and goes to wrap her arms around his waist.

But he puts her away from him, none too gently, takes a few steps before stopping to just stand there, shoulders hunched, as if she's the anchor-chain dragging him back. He doesn't look at her. "Don't, Elizabeth. Just...don't."

They are fraying, she thinks, unraveling like rope brittle-worn and strained by sun and salt and wind-tension. She feels the snapping of each thread keenly, the beginning of an end away from which she cannot seem to steer them, and though she tries to make them fast, she knows her clumsy knots won't hold against this tide.

_He knows; he must know. He must have seen. He must have guessed..._ She steps towards him again, once, twice. "Will..." She means to say, _we should talk about this_, but she can't. Doesn't want to tell him; doesn't want to lie to him; doesn't want to hurt him, any more than she already has.

He places a hand on the bulkhead as if for support, says, raggedly, "I saw you with Jack on the _Pearl_. I know you kissed him."

And there it is, just as she'd feared. "Will, I can explain...you don't understand..."

"You're right, I don't." He turns back to her, his expression bleak. "How could you, Elizabeth? With _Jack_? He betrayed me to Jones! He meant to leave us to the Kraken!"

"No, he didn't." She knows her defense is too quick, too vehement. "He is...he _was_ a good man, Will."

A pause; she drops her eyes to the boards of the deck, but she can feel his gaze on her nonetheless, like the piercing chill of steel. The ship sways under their feet, the creak of rigging and the lick of hungry waves against the hull loud in their silence. Finally Will says simply, "Do you love him?"

She jerks her head up, her inhalation sharp in her own ears. The question hangs between them, powder waiting for a spark.

_Does she love Jack Sparrow?_ If she dreams of him each night, restless in her narrow berth--his hands and mouth, sharp pleasure that she misses with dull shame on waking; that last smile of his for her, a gift, a claim, a challenge; his voice, low and intimate and laughing, saying her name or speaking of freedom; and sometimes of his death, his skull white in moonlight or his still face, lively eyes clouded, rising towards her out of the sea until she sits up shivering in the dark, her own face wet with tears--does that mean she loves him? If this ache in her is the shape of his absence, is that love? She hasn't dared to ask it of herself, until now.

But Will doesn't want the truth, even if she knew it well enough to answer with, and she won't lie. Instead she closes the gap between them and kisses him, wondering if this kiss, too, is one of betrayal, trying to bury whatever it is that she feels for Jack under everything she has always felt for Will. Trying to find the heat in him that she's been missing, the warmth she left behind on the deck of the doomed _Black Pearl_. But there is nothing there, no fire left to stoke. She's still cold inside, all sand and ashes, quenched by the icy black crush of the ocean that has claimed Jack and now threatens to rise and swallow her as well.

Will stands stiffly, unresponsive at first, but after a moment he takes her by the shoulders, trapping her against the bulkhead, his hands and mouth possessive on her. Astonished, she opens her eyes; his are dark and hard, glittering with lust and anger.

Instinct rather than fear brings her hands up, pushing at his chest. "What are you doing?"

"Isn't that how _he_ would kiss you?" His voice is rough. "I thought that's what you wanted." And he's bitter, so bitter where Jack was sweet; Jack's kiss had been nothing like that, had not demanded anything of her, had only taken what was given and given it back with interest. This man before her is hardly her gentle, loving Will, anymore; and Jack is dead, and she is a stranger to herself, and none of them are free. This is what she has done. In trying to save them, she has lost them all.

"No!" she cries. He's dropped his arms; she slides away from him along the wall. "No. That's not what I want."

"Then what _do_ you want?" he counters wearily. "Tell me, Elizabeth, because I'm tired of guessing. Not least because I don't like my best guesses."

"I don't know," she whispers. "I don't know, Will. I thought..." _I thought I wanted you. Once upon a time. I thought I wanted to get married. And now..._

Will just looks at her, a sea-depth of defeat and pain in his eyes. "You don't have to pretend to love me," he says. "You know I'd never ask that of you, Elizabeth."

The words break over her with the stinging slap of a storm-raised wave, leaving her breathless. She cannot speak; and when she raises her head, he is gone. His footsteps echo harsh and hollow on the steps of the hatch.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and blinks against the tears that should but do not fill her dry and burning eyes.

She does not try to follow him above.


End file.
